Do you agree that prayer is the key to any spiritual endeavor? Larry Barker shared, “We need more prayer individually, as churches and as an association because Jesus set the example of a life and mission fueled by prayer (Mark 1:35; Luke 6:19). The theme of the Scriptures is to pray without ceasing and don’t ever stop!” Prayer should be at the heart of all we do individually, as a church and as an association.
Over the last year, the Baptist Trumpet has sought to reinforce the importance and benefit of being connected through our association of churches by producing the “Why Do We Associate” and the “How Do We Associate?” series of articles. The BMA is a family of autonomous (self-governed) Baptist churches working together to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We associate together for mission and ministry and are truly better together.
With the approaching 75th annual meeting of the BMA of America (April 16-18), we encourage you to make a special effort to pray for our association. Even if you cannot attend the meeting in person, will you join other individuals and churches and spend a season praying for our association and the meeting?
In cooperation with Healthy Church Solutions, the Baptist Trumpet will publish articles about prayer over the next five weeks leading up to the meeting. The purpose is not to tell a church that it must participate but to invite each church to join together in an intentional time of prayer for our association of churches as we prepare to meet together for encouragement and fellowship while taking care of the pressing business of our association.
In this article, our goal is to let you know what is coming and encourage you to set aside some specific time in the weeks preceding the meeting for dedicated prayer for each of the ministries of our association and our leaders as they prepare for the upcoming meeting. After this introductory article, here is the plan for the next few weeks:
• March 13 — An article highlighting the prayer movements in our association.
• March 20 — An article from a pastor who has successfully launched a prayer initiative in his church.
• March 27 — An article with specific ways to intentionally make prayer the heartbeat of your church and ministry.
• April 3 — Specific ways to pray for our association this week.
• April 10 — Specific ways to pray for our association this week.
We ask every church in our association to commit to praying for our association. We invite you to devote a specific time of prayer during the morning worship services on April 7 and 14 (the two weekends before the meeting). If you are led to do more, other possibilities would be to organize a dedicated time of prayer (i.e., a special prayer service, all members commit to pray at the same time every day, 24 hours of prayer, etc.) outside the morning service sometime during one or both of those weekends — whatever would work for your church.
Prayer should be foundational to everything we do, and prayer strengthens unity. Larry Barker often says, “I’ve never heard anyone complain that they were praying too much.” He also loves this quote from E.M. Bounds, “The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods but through men! He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men — men of prayer!”
However you choose to participate, we would love to know that you will choose to do so. Please email Heidi Sorrels with Healthy Church Solutions at heidi@bmaglobal.org and let her know that you will join in and how you plan to participate. She can also provide you with resources for organizing your church’s prayer times if needed.
